Chapter 3- the first of many.AN: I hope you like it, let me know. I really appreciate reviews and I always respond. Just let me know if I get too terrible OOC. Thanks!

A few days passed and nothing really exciting happened. Draco and Hermione didn’t really talk much, or even see each other very often, so it worked out well. That is, until Hermione finally felt like she was far enough ahead in each subject that she could relax and read a pleasure book. Funnily enough, she couldn’t seem to find the one she was looking for. She searched her room, the common room, all of her class rooms and she even went to the library to see if someone had found it and returned it to the library by mistake, they hadn’t.

“I don’t know where it could be!” She exclaimed over breakfast that Saturday. Harry and Ron were sitting with her looking at her sympathetically. They knew how much that book meant to her and were well aware of how much trouble she was going through to find it.

“Have you asked Malfoy?” Harry asked. Both Ron and Hermione looked at him like he was crazy.

“Why would I do that?” Hermione asked. Harry rolled his eyes at his two best friends.

“Because, he is living with you, maybe he’s seen it recently. Or maybe he found it in the common room, didn’t know it was yours, and decided to read it.” Hermione pondered that for a moment.

“I guess it’s worth a try.” She amended. “Thanks Harry, I’ll go right now to see if he’s up yet.” And with that, she got up and left the great hall to go find Malfoy.

* * *
Hermione tip-toed up to Malfoy’s door, not wanting to wake him if he was still sleeping, the lazy bum, she knocked on the door quietly and was shocked to hear a faint “come in” from the other side. She pushed the door open and stepped inside. She looked around the room, trying to find the blonde slytherin that she was looking for.

“Hello?” She called, unable to find where he was.

“Yeah?” She heard that same faint voice say, but this time she was able to locate where it had come from. She walked over to the bed and peeled the covers back just far enough to see Malfoy’s face. “Granger?” He asked, confused. “What are you doing in my room this early?”

“First of all” she started “it is not that early anymore, it’s near ten o’clock in the morning, and second of all” she continued “why would you say ‘come in’ if you didn’t want the person to enter? Why not just say ‘piss off’?” She had a little bit of edge in her voice, frustrated a bit with Malfoy, but mostly with the fact that she still hadn’t found her missing book.

Hearing Hermione say “piss off” was apparently shocking enough to make Malfoy sit straight up in bed and look at her quizzically, though that might also have been from the tone in which she had said it. “Um…” he muttered “I don’t know. What did you want to say?” He asked it mostly to get her off the topic of him saying stupid things in the morning. He saw her visibly deflate at what he’d said, though he didn’t know why that would make her sad.

“I was just wondering if you had seen a book of mine, it’s gone missing and I can’t find it anywhere!” Malfoy immediately knew what book she was talking about and where it was, but he wasn’t going to tell her that just yet, he wasn’t done having fun.

“What book?” He asked mildly, though he knew it was a mistake as soon as he’d said it, it was too calm for any talk between him and Hermione.

“Diagnose Your Own Magical Maladies. By Beth Klend.” She said, apparently not noticing Malfoy’s too-cool reply. “Have you seen it?” She asked this eagerly, hoping to be relieved of her sadness. She had no suck luck with Malfoy though.

“Nope, never even heard of it. Sorry.” He almost regretted saying it when he saw how depressed she looked, almost.

“BAAA!” Hermione let out her pent up frustration, completely forgetting where she was and who was sitting in the bed right in front of her, she was so mad that she just exploded. “GOD!” She screamed, kicking the wall next to her. Malfoy was almost scared of her, this was not the way she usually acted, even when she was mad at him for something. Apparently books were of greater importance. “I CAN’T FREAKING BELIEVE THIS!!! WHERE THE HELL CAN A BOOK GO! I DON’T EVEN OWN ANY THAT CAN MOVE ON THEIR OWN!!!”

She was stomping around Malfoy’s room, pulling at her hair, punching and kicking anything that she came in contact with. Malfoy wanted to get up, be his usually arrogant prick of a person and yell at her for kicking his stuff and then kick her out of his room, but the sight of her all pissed off about a book was just too amusing, and terrifying. He smiled at the scene she was making. Unfortunately for him that was the moment she chose to remember that he existed.

“I’M SOOO GLAD THAT THIS IS ENTERTAINING FOR YOU MALFOY! I WOULD HATE TO BORE YOU WITH MY FIT!” Malfoy made the mistake of letting his amusement get the better of him just then and a laugh escaped him. He tried to cover it as a cough but, as usual, Hermione was smart enough not to fall for it. “YOU FIND THIS FUNNY? YOU FIND THIS BLOODY FUNNY? MY BOOK IS GONE! THE EXPENSIVE BOOK THAT MY PARENTS GOT ME AS A GIFT IS GONE!!!” Suddenly, as much to Malfoy’s astonishment as to Hermione’s, her knees gave way and she landed in a heap on his floor. Then she was crying and completely breaking down.

Malfoy didn’t know what to do with himself. Should he comfort her? No, that was too nice and she was Granger after all. Then should he kick her out? No, she might punch him in the face, and she had a good right hook. He compromised by getting her a handkerchief to use. True it was one of his good ones, embroidered with green tread to say D.M. but it was the first one he found.

She took it without a word and used it to dab at her eyes and she calmed down and began to breath normally again. She looked up at his confused face. “What?” she asked.

“I’ve just never known anyone to get so worked up over a book, even one given as a gift.” He observed. She merely blinked at him, said her thanks, got up from the floor and left his room.

* * *
What Draco did after Granger left his room, he is not proud of. He went to his closet and found the book. He leafed through it quickly, just to see if there was something extraordinary about it. Of course, there wasn’t. And then he did a nice thing, to his disgust, he hid the book in an easy to find place in the common room, the couch cushions.

* * *
That Sunday Malfoy woke to a scream from the common room. He jumped out of bed and ran downstairs, thinking someone had broken in or something else terrible. Then he saw Hermione standing next to the couch, the cushions all messed up. She had found the book. “I can’t believe I found it!!!!” She screeched. “I swear that I looked here, but here it is!!! OH MY GOSH!!!! I’m sooo happy that I found it!!!!” She simply gushed with excitement. “I have to go tell the others!” And she rushed from the portrait, leaving a very amused Malfoy behind.

It wasn’t until she was halfway to Gryffindor tower that she realized that he had only been clad in his boxers and that that had been the second time she had seen him so scantly dressed. Even worse was when she realized that she didn’t really mind.